


Fair Play

by Maizzy



Series: Weird Prompts [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, Humor, Meet-Cute, mentally singing Queens Bicycle Race while writing this, weird prompt, well sorta varric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maizzy/pseuds/Maizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weird prompts are good for the soul. This one happens to involve the theft of a bicycle and a first meeting. </p><p>Solas is having a very bad day. Things take a turn for the decidedly worse when his bike ride is interrupted by a thief, a dwarf and a police officer with no patience for any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fair Play

**Author's Note:**

> This is the actual prompt from OTP prompts on tumblr: 
> 
> Imagine Person B is on a bike ride of some sort, and stops after a good mile to take a break. They’re standing around when Person A suddenly runs by, picking up Person B’s bike and taking off. From there, Person B chases after Person A yelling, “AT LEAST RIDE IT YOU ASSHOLE!”  
> Bonus: This is how they first met.

Solas leaned against the sun-baked brick of the library, sinking into the heat of the stone pressing against his tired muscles. It felt amazing. As he gulped down a few cool swigs of water from his vacuum-sealed bottle, some of the tension that had inspired his mad-cap ride earlier in the day finally slipped away. Things were looking better now that he was out under the sun. The break-in at his office, though terrible, was in the process of being shuffled to the mental “problems to be solved” category, rather than hanging around the “disaster” category any longer.

Yes, the orb was stolen. Yes, the only leads the police had offered forth were nonsensical at best. Yes, he had probably brought this on himself by trying to deal in the Dalish black market.

Yes, he was still going to wring the neck of the would-be be culprit.

Perhaps he could use a few more minutes resting in the sun before continuing his bike ride.

He had meant it for the best, but somewhere along the line word must've spread from the Dalish about the orb. Of course it had. How someone could be willing to play god with an entire culture’s one solid link to their past was beyond him. It showed a sort of reckless dismissal of anything past profit, and boded ill for the fate of the orb.

He drew his dripping shirt up to try and wipe away some of the sweat beading on his head. He could feel it not working - the shirt was already sodden to max capacity from the heat and the hours of intense exercise out in said heat. He focused instead on massaging his fingers against his forehead, not willing to let the shirt drop away and reveal to him, again, this most terrible of days.

A small click happened from somewhere to his left, and he figured it was one of the many parents out for a mid-week run to the library unlocking a car. Feeling that perhaps they had not bargained on seeing a random man flashing around his torso, Solas dropped the shirt again where it plastered itself right back onto his sweat-drenched waist.

Instead of the pensioner or perhaps stay-at-home parent he had been expecting to see staring at him, there was no one. Instead, off in the distance there was a lone figure dashing away, holding Solas’ bike aloft.

And they were already about twenty meters away.

“AT LEAST RIDE IT, YOU ASS!” Solas bellowed before pushing himself up and taking off after the retreating figure.

His muscles ached and strained, thighs practically on fire from the pedaled punishment he had put them through earlier. And the thief was _fast_. So fast that he was half-afraid they would make it around a corner between one of these buildings and lose him in a tangle of alleys. If they put the bike down and actually got on it, he would be done for.

He shook his head as he pushed on harder. Being stolen from once today enough; twice beggared belief.

And then, as if in slow motion, the person finally heeded his shouted advice. They set the bike down and swung a leg over it.

In a last-ditch effort, Solas leapt, lunging full-out to catch the person’s leg. To his utter surprise, it worked.

With a bellowed oath, the thief lost balance as Solas’ hands wrapped around their ankle. Bike and thief tumbled over, joining Solas in a tangle of limbs and feebly-spinning pedals.

“Fuck,” the thief exhaled in a soft hiss.

Solas had ended up half-sprawled over the bike, which in turn was pressed down on the thief, pinning them to the ground.

“What in the void do you think you’re doing?” He demanded, unmoving. Moving would allow an opportunity for the thief to spring up again. No, they could stay well and thoroughly trapped until some of the anger crackling in his veins had run its course.

The thief grunted, trying to tug their legs free. They did not, however, say a word besides that one whispered expletive.

“Really?” Solas shifted, letting more of his weight fall on the bike to emphasize his displeasure of the thief’s reticence.

The thief gasped out a breath and tried again to struggle free, but Solas caught the back of their sweater to make doubly sure that they’d be going nowhere until he decided they could. Their hood fell, greeting Solas with a view of a messy knot of hair, pressed flat to the thief’s head by its time spent under the hood.

“Hey, is this guy bothering you, miss?”

Solas looked around wildly to see a dwarven man walking up to them, concern and more than a little anger written over his face.

The would-be thief, sounding slightly squashed, gasped, “No, I definitely make a habit of being trapped under bikes and random men. Of course he's bothering me!”

The dwarf rounded on Solas. “Hey, Chuckles, get off the lady before I call the police.”

“The lady, I’m afraid, is the one at fault here. She tried to steal my bicycle. I was merely preventing her delinquency.”

“He’s lying!” The thief gasped out again, as Solas shifted so that more of his weight was directly pressed on the bike. “It’s my bike. Look at the little decal. Says 'Elvhen', right?"

"It does say 'Elvhen'," the dwarf agreed.

"Of course it does!" Solas growled, moving an elbow to the pressure point at the small of the thief's back. She immediately went lax under him, a small whine of protest coming from where her face was pressed down on the sidewalk. "Elvhen is the leading producer of all quality-“

“What is the meaning of this disturbance? You are blocking the walking path.”

Solas leaned his head back to see a lone police officer standing over him, blocking out the sun.

“Baldy here jumped on the lady,” the dwarf explained.

“Yes!” The thief echoed, still sounding muffled.

“She stole my bike!” He tried to enunciate each word with enough force to get through the wall of ignorance that seemed nearly inescapable at this point, but alas, it was a lost cause.

A steel bracelet clicked around his wrist.

“Sir, ma’am, I’m afraid that you’re both going to have to come with me to get this settled.”

The cop pulled Solas to his feet, and clapped an identical pair of cuffs on the thief before helping her up as well.

“But he attacked me!” The thief was saying the whole time.

“You’ll just have to give a statement to that, and then we can start trying to sort through this.”

Solas pressed his mouth into a firm line. The best way to expedite a legal fiasco was to not cause a ruckus unless it was truly necessary, as he had learned well from earlier this morning. And he was in the right, after all. Surely the legal system would recognize that.

Hours later, when he was still being held in a cell with his would-be thief, it became clear that the legal system _did not_ recognize that.

His bike was likely seized as evidence at this point - never to be seen again amidst the piles of contraband goods snatched from actual criminals.

And all because of _her._

Solas sighed, eyeing the woman staring off into space across from him in the holding cell. They hadn’t spoken since being taken in. He had thought about it, and continuing to berate her for getting him into this mess held a certain sort of appeal, but what was the point? It was done. Or at least out of their hands. He had also gotten a good look at the rather large tear in her jeans and the dirt smudge across her cheek. Souvenirs of their encounter courtesy of him, he supposed. He hadn’t meant to be quite so rough with her. Well, perhaps he had at the time, but now...

“Are you… did I hurt you?”

Her eyes flicked to him and then performed the most extraordinarily eloquent eye roll he had ever witnessed; complete with groan and shrug. He wondered if he should offer applause.

“It took you four hours to ask that?”

“I believe it has only been three, actually.”

She crossed her arms. “Fine. Three hours?”

“You _stole_ my bike.”

“Well yeah,” she scoffed. “Nice bike like that and you took your eyes off of it? Please. You were practically asking me to take it.”

Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

“By that logic, I was perfectly within my rights to tackle you,” he pointed out.

“Yup.”

“‘Yup’?” He rolled the single syllable around in his mouth, trying to understand this turn of events. “You agree?”

The woman huffed out a breath of what he assumed was annoyance and tucked her hair behind her pointed ears. “Of course I agree. You can’t just let people go and take your things!”

Solas opened his mouth. Shut it. Tried once more and finally threw his hands up saying, “I suppose you telling the dwarf that I was harassing you falls exactly in place with what must come next by your logic! Because laws and the truth mean nothing, and all that governs our society is a tenuous line of escalating steps leading to the ultimate triumph of one person over the entirety of society! Is that that your reasoning?” He was sitting forward, breathing hard, but staring harder at the woman across from him casually picking at a string of thread hanging from her sweater.

“Sounds about right.”

He wondered if this was how spontaneous combustion happened. It seemed likely. “And so you are aggravated with _me_ , after all of that, for not checking in on you?!”

“Well, yeah. That’s just rude.” The woman smiled blandly at him. “I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

“You-! You… you are welcome. And I am sorry if I injured you,” he said, deflating. There was no point in holding onto his ire, past making both of their incarcerations more unpleasant. He was tired, chilled from the over-enthusiastic air conditioner humming away just outside of their cell, and more than a little taken aback by her reasoning.

The woman studied his face, before nodding.

He watched her back, taking her moment of open perusal as tantamount permission to give her a look over as well. Scrutinizing beautiful women was something he consciously avoided most times, as he would hate to add any layering of unnecessary discomfort to a person’s day, but this woman was practically undressing him with her eyes.

Not that it required much effort on her part, he supposed. He was still in his tight biking shorts and and his under armour shirt. He had half hoped the he’d be allowed the spare change of clothes in his backpack when they had brought him in, but no. Sitting in the chilly cell and slowly feeling the sweat from earlier dry on his skin had been yet another joy on the already long list of Things That Had Happened Today.

Her eyes dipped lower for the briefest moment, before glancing back up to meet his. “Nice shorts.”

Heat crept up his neck, burning to the tips of his ears. Yes, a change of cloths would indeed have been nice. He was not about to let her know his discomfort, however. She had broken through his calm more than enough for one day. So he said, “Thank you. Though I assure you, they serve a purpose beyond your viewing pleasure.”

Her eyes widened and an incredulous smile crinkled up the corner of her mouth. She had dimples. It was hardly fair. Hardened criminals and thieves should not be allowed such things.

“I bet. Very aerodynamic and all that,” she agreed, the damnable dimple popping up on her other cheek as she smiled fully at him. “Probably why you could even catch up to me in the first place earlier. Less wind resistance or something,” she said, shaking an arm to emphasize her baggy sweatshirt.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” he said, utterly bemused. This conversation hadn’t even taken a wrong turn - it had walked a wonky path from its inception, and Solas was at a loss as to how to bring it back onto the straight and narrow. Trying to muddle through was oddly refreshing... In a fantastically frustrating disaster of a way. Perhaps he’d merely had enough of the rigidity of bureaucracy today, and an objectively attractive, though morally-suspect, woman talking circles around him was a welcome contrast. That was possible too.

“See, if I had been in just this” - Solas’ eyes snapped back to her - “I definitely would’ve gotten away.”

She shrugged the over-large sweater off of a shoulder and leaned forward, struggling to slink out of it and granting him a view in the process that made him very much wish he was wearing anything, _anything_ , other than his lycra biker shorts.

Underneath the sweater she wore a simple, black, sleeveless shirt that would indeed have served her well if aerodynamics were her goal. It was tugged up a bit, and granted a view of taut stomach muscles flexing as she pulled the sweater free of her other arm.

He was staring.

He knew he was staring.

Because one minute he was watching the way the smooth skin at her hips creased when she sat forward, and then the next the sweater she had been wearing smacked him in the face.

She snorted. “There. Put that on your seat, Bike Guy. That cold metal bench must’ve been hell on your thighs.”

For the sweater of a criminal, it smelled surprisingly good. He pulled it off his face and held it up between them, raising an eyebrow at her over the top of it.

“This does not follow your logic,” he pointed out.

“Sure it does.”

“Oh? What have I done to earn myself one of your possessions?”

She smiled, shrugging in a way that made him have to work to not stare once again. “It’s more of a pre-emptive strike, really. Because now you’ll have to wash it and return it to me. Wouldn’t want to be rude again, right? Not after I so generously saved your literal ass from freezing.”

The door at the end of the hall of holding cells slammed open, and a bored-looking cop came strolling along to door, keys in hand.

“Lavellan, you’re free to go. Your bicycle is waiting for you at the property clerk along with your other possessions.” Solas started to protest, but the cop held up a hand. “Don’t make it worse for yourself, sir. Stay back from the bars until she exits. Captain still wants to have words with you.”

The woman, Lavellan, he supposed, stood and grinned at him, exquisite dimples and all. “Be seeing you, Bike Guy. Good luck with the thighs.”

And with that she followed the cop out of the hall, not even shooting him a backward glance.

He fingered the sweater in his hands, alternating between fury and heated curiosity.

At the very least, he would need to find her again to reclaim his bike. And she was right, returning the sweater would only be polite.

The day was still terrible, and the looming talk with the police captain only promised to make it worse, but… perhaps it had not been a total loss. Perhaps.

 

**Author's Note:**

> SO I wrote this weirdo story in an effort to break myself out of some writers block. I think part of my current problem is being a little too excited about my current projects and not feeling like anything I write will do them justice. Thus, weird prompts! 
> 
> If anyone comes across any other good weird ones, feel free to toss them my way! No guarantees that I'll write them, but who knows!
> 
> Also, this fic is totally still Eres if you all couldn't tell. hah. I was like "hmm... i can't really put her name in... welp. maybe I'll just cop out and put it in the author's note." So there you go.


End file.
